I was sure John and I could be questioned on how open standards
provide for better accreditation of voting systems.
BTW - just as a point of reference to how major the need is and how
bad the situation currently is - here in the USA - our good at friends
Diebold just persuaded Maryland that their ePollBook system is fine -
based on the accreditation services of someone who has a degree in
hotel management and just setup an accreditation company because
nothing says he cannot do that!!!
How special.
=================================
Lamone Finds a Firm that will
approve Diebold paperless voting
in so-called ‘security
review’
The SBE has announced that they will be
giving a no-bid contract Freeman, Craft, McGregor Group, Inc. to test
Maryland’s voting system for the latest round of security
vulnerabilities that have been exposed regarding Diebold’s TSX
machines.
TrueVoteMD is concerned that the SBE has hired a
firm that includes Paul Craft as a principle –rather than a firm
that has been a critic of the system – or at least someone who
has not shown a bias in favor of Diebold.
The firm,
Freeman, Craft, McGregor Group, Inc., was created by former Florida
elections official Paul Craft. Mr. Craft who has been a professional
apologist for the Diebold system since its initial contracts were
signed by the State of Maryland -
Paul Craft: Bias in
favor of Diebold, paperless voting; an advocate for manufacturers, and
tied to the infamous Florida voter purge
Mr. Craft has
consistently blocked proposed security measures, in regards to paper
trails. A report on an Election Assistance Commission (EAC) meeting
describes his open alliance with manufacturers of voting
equipment:
Paul Craft, another member of the committee, then
suggested that they hear from the vendor engineers who were in the
audience to see what they would do about the proposed standards. At
this point, Dr. Semerjian, the chairman of the committee and the
Director of NIST, said that the TGDC is not in existence to approve
existing voting systems, nor rubber stamp state decisions. The
committee then went on a break.
Upon return from the break Paul
Craft announced that he had talked to the vendors and that they did not
like some of the standards. A vote was then held and those standards
were deleted.
Source:
http://www.votetrustusa.org/blogs/nist&tdgc.htm Another
example is a January 28, 2005 letter by Fernando Morales to the
entitled: Paul Craft’s Questionable Behavior. The letter
claims that Paul Craft has consistently watered down security measures
in favor of the machine manufacturers rather then take the warning of
security experts into consideration. See:
http://vote.nist.gov/ecposstatements/morelascraftcomment.pdf#search='paul%20craft%27s%20questionable%20behavior' -
Further, reports link him to the controversial Voter Roll Purge in
Florida in 2000 and 2004. Vanity Fair reports that in 2000 Paul
Craft was told about how the purge would adversely affect minorities in
Florida yet did nothing to stop the purge from occurring, despite being
in a position where he could do so. See:
http://www.makethemaccountable.com/articles/The_Path_To_Florida.htm -
Paul Craft is not a qualified security analyst; his degree is in Hotel
Management.
His full resume can be found at:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050308061207/paulcraft.net/resume.html